Shred of Hope for Mideast

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s qualified agreement Wednesday to accept President Clinton’s latest formula as the basis for further negotiation with the Israelis has injected a small but tangible hope that the will to achieve peace has not been destroyed by months of violence. Israel and the Palestinians will be sending envoys to Washington to seek a way to end the cycle of violence. Clearly, both sides should try to take this one last stab at peace while Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak are still in office. Without either one, the hopes would dim considerably.

Clinton’s pre-Christmas peace plan touched on the most sensitive issues dividing the Palestinians and Israelis, including sovereignty over Jerusalem’s Temple Mount and the right of millions of displaced Palestinians to return to their pre-1948 homes. Without agreement on these issues, Clinton rightly reasons, peace will not be possible.

There is little time left if the parties want to reach an accord before Clinton’s presidency ends Jan. 20. Each participant has a compelling interest in striking a deal before then. Clinton wants to be a Middle East peacemaker, and he has invested a great deal of time and political capital in the process. Signing an agreement would be a crowning achievement of his White House tenure.

Meanwhile, Barak is facing an election Feb. 6, and he appears almost certain to lose unless he can produce a deal with Arafat. Barak’s popularity has been sinking in tandem with Israeli disillusionment over the peace process. He was elected 19 months ago by convincing Israelis to accept significant concessions to the Palestinians, but he still has nothing to show for it. If he prevails upon Palestinian leaders to put an end to violence and sign a peace document by Jan. 20, he still will have time to sell it to Israeli voters and salvage his political career.

Arafat remains the least flexible of the negotiators. He has always been much quicker to consult fellow Arab leaders--and he left Washington Wednesday for Cairo to do so again--than his own people on terms of peace with the Israelis. Public debate among the Palestinians has been virtually nonexistent, and extremists bent on waging a holy war against Israel have so far carried the day. According to the unfathomable logic within Arafat’s camp, Barak’s electoral defeat would help the Palestinians through worldwide sympathy stemming from a subsequent Israeli crackdown on demonstrators. Possibly, but Arafat appears to forget that Barak’s rival, Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon, is a hard-line politician who is dismissive of world opinion.

This appears to be the last best chance for Middle East peace for some time to come. President-elect George W. Bush fully supports Clinton’s efforts, but once he enters the White House he will have many other priorities and the issue of Israel and the Palestinians will sink toward the bottom of the agenda. The time is now.